


Secret Jams

by smoothmovebro



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Bribery, Comedy, Dancing, Gen, Guilty Pleasures, Music, ipod mixup, technology blunders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 09:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12627534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoothmovebro/pseuds/smoothmovebro
Summary: We all have that one type of music/artist we love but won't admit to anyone else. What do we do when someone finds out our little secret? The Squip Squad each have different reactions.





	Secret Jams

**Author's Note:**

> written for nanowrimo 2017  
>  ~~sort of a day late here on my part OTL~~

The shimmying of shoulders. The snapping of fingers. The gyration of hips. Complex footsteps making imaginary patterns and arcs on the floor. A spin or two to flourish. Finally, the last pose to finish the number.

Rich holds the pose for a few seconds, huffing from exertion. He hears clapping from behind him and he whirls around, fists clenched in a defensive stance. He sees that it’s Jenna applauding him for his run through of the dance number he’s been working on. Rich gulps at her applause because if she’s seen him dance, then she knows that he’s been dancing to-

“I never took you for a dancer, much less someone who dances to Taylor Swift.” Jenna hums the hook of “Shake It Off”, the song he was dancing to. Rich’s face turns into a bright red at someone else knowing his little secret.

“L-look,” Rich says, feeling his lisp emerging. “I don't care if you go around telling people I'm a dancer, just don't tell anyone about-”

"Oh, you're ashamed about _that_?" Jenna replies. She laughs. "I almost thought it would be the other way around."

Rich scoffs. "With a body like this?" he says while showing off his biceps. "Nuh-uh. Too obvious. The Taylor Swift thing will _ruin_ me."

Jenna looks around the empty classroom Rich is using as a practice area. She ponders her next words. Finally, she nods. "I'll let you have your Swiftie obsession under wraps."

"Oh god, thank you so-"

Jenna holds up a finger. "Only if! You let me copy off your chemistry notes."

Rich groans. "You know I suck at chemistry!"

"Exactly my point. I know you've been falling behind in that class so I need you to get your act together. Especially balancing equations."

Rich drags a hand down his face. He relents. "Fine." He walks over to grab his phone and the speaker that was playing the song. "You have a weird way of caring for your friends, Rolan," he comments as he walks out of the room.

"It's how I show love, honey!"

* * *

_Twelve... Thirteen... Fourteen... Fifteen..._

Jake huffs with each pullup at the bar. He has earbuds in and it's playing his workout playlist: an upbeat combination of his favourite songs by his favourite artist. There's something about the synth and the percussion that gets him to push harder, to test his limits, to be better than he already is but not in that imposing way he's forced to be better all his life-

Right. He's done twenty reps now. He jumps down from the bar and stretches his arms before going for the next set of reps: push-ups. He stretches his neck from side to side, then drops down and starts the push-ups.

A new song comes on and it's one of his favourites. The plucky strings enter and the electric guitar fades in to introduce the vocals. At this point, Jake is humming along with the instruments and the singer. It's a song so familiar and comforting for him that he can turn down the volume all the way to mute right now, sing along, then turn it back up and be in the same place as the actual song. He's listened to it _that_ many times.

The first chorus comes along and Jake is done with his push-ups. He whispers the lyrics along with the song and catches himself grinning as he does so. This is why Jake Dillinger works out: not to get fit or bulk up or de-stress, but rather to have an excuse to listen to _this_ particular kind of music and face no judgment. Hey, whatever gets you motivated, right?

The second verse comes along and Jake is nearly finished with his workout. He chose this one because it's a signal that he should be wrapping up and cooling down. He paces around before settling on a chair and doing some leg stretches. The strings fade out and the synth makes a whooshing sound to build up to-

"Hey, I just met you! And this is crazy! But here's my number! So call me maybe!"

Jake nearly falls off his chair when he sees Chloe walk in singing the song he thought he was listening to in his earbuds.

"Ch-Chloe!" Jake says. "What a surprise!" He checks his phone. Surely enough, the Bluetooth connection wasn't with his earbuds, but with the stereo in the room. He curses himself under his breath.

"Never thought you listened to pop stuff like this," Chloe says. She takes care to stay away from Jake, since he's all sweaty and gross from the workout.

Jake laughs and rubs a hand on the back of his neck. "Yeah, I thought I was just listening to it in my earbuds so like..."

Chloe laughs. "No, don't think I'm going to make fun of you for it."Her voice goes softer. "It's pretty cool that you're confident in your tastes. I've yet to tell people about mine..."

Jake wipes his face on a towel. "I mean, it's music, right? Doesn't matter what kind, it's how it makes you feel that counts." He crinkles his nose and looks around the room.

"Hey, can you get me a shirt?"

* * *

Brooke breathes a sigh of relief as the video finishes downloading onto her laptop. The conversion process is arduous and figuring out how to flip video clips nearly made her pull her own hair out. Finally, the finished product now manifests in her download list. She clicks on the video and plays it.

She sets her laptop on her desk and she takes a few steps away from it. An electric keyboard pings a boppy intro and xylophones accompany it.

She may not understand the words, but she admires the melody and the choreography that comes with it. Her first mistake makes itself known when she can't keep up with the dancers. She walks towards her laptop, pauses the video, and adjusts the playback rate. She mutes the volume before playing the video again. She goes back to her previous position and imitates the movements at the same rate as the video. With the playback rate being slower, she figures out the nuance of the movement and even a little bit of the footwork involved in the dance. For now, she focuses on the main dancer in front with the yellow headband in her hair. She slowly sings the lyrics, making connections between the music and the dance. She finds herself grinning when she progresses to the chorus of the song.

A piercing ringtone on her laptop tears her from her reverie. It's a Skype call from Christine. She curses herself for tweaking her settings so that Skype calls automatically get answered unless she specifically rejects them. She ducks her head and tries to make it look like she was picking something off the floor when she sees Christine's face pop up on her screen.

"Is now a good time?" she asks. "I was just wondering about that art assignment we had the other day."

Brooke shouts from beyond the frame. "It's okay! I'm just..." she cringes at her awkward response, "looking for something." She comes back up, exits the video, and brings her laptop with her as she settles in bed.

The two girls exchange ideas about their interpretation of the art assignment. Christine thinks that their teacher wants an abstract landscape piece, while Brooke poses the idea that perhaps the teacher meant a portrait inspired by one of the artists they studied. They eventually give up on trying to find an answer and let the other do her assignment in their own interpretation. There is, at best, a 50/50 chance that one of them is right.

"Were you trying to practice the Haru Haru Yukai dance when you answered my Skype call?" Christine asked. Brooke blushes and hides her hands in the sleeves of her cardigan.

"It's okay!" Christine assures. "We all have guilty pleasures." She looks around her room before lowering her voice. "I'm a massive fan of Tom Jones."

Brooke laughs. "You mean that old guy with the sex bomb song?" Christine nods.

"And I can help with learning the choreography at school if you want. There's only so much you can do with a mirrored video."

Brooke nods and accepts Christine's offer.

* * *

Michael takes pride in owning vintage technology. He has a working cassette player with a sizeable collection of cassette albums. He owns a clunky CD player and has a smaller collection of CD's because he never really found their portability to be appealing.

iPods, though, are the shit. He still has the first model and he uses it for most of his music instead of incorporating his music library into his phone like everyone else. But then again, he needs room for apps and that's difficult to achieve if three-quarters of your phone storage is all music.

Yeah. You can see why he'd need an iPod.

The thing with having an extensive music library is that Michael needed more than one iPod to house his powerhouse of a music collection. He has three: two for everyday use, and one for days when he feels like indulging himself.

Today just happened to be the day that he mixes up one of them for the other.

He doesn't realise that, though, until he starts on another one of his tirades about the glory of Bob Marley.

"Hey, look, I'll show you," he says to Jeremy. "Prepare to be blown away by sheer awesomeness!" He puts an audio splitter into the headphone jack of his iPod and plugs in his and Jeremy's headphones into the sockets. Michael presses shuffle and leans back to witness Jeremy react to the music.

Jeremy cocks his head when the first beats of the song begin. It's a heavy bass and lilting beat.

"This isn't-"

_Work, work, work, work, work, work / You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work_

"Oh my god," Michael breathes. "This can't be." He pauses the song and scrolls his way through his library. His face becomes more and more stricken when he sees the contents of this particular iPod.

They're all Rihanna songs. All of her discography, accompanied with live versions of songs and covers of songs he appreciated and mooched off the internet. _Everything_ was Rihanna.

Michael buries his face in his hands. "I am such a dumbass."

Jeremy laughs. "Happens to the best of us. I'm just surprised I didn't know about this sooner."

Michael comes back up and pouts at Jeremy. Jeremy laughs again and raises his hands in a placating gesture.

"If we're gonna be on the topic of guilty pleasure music, I'll be honest with you right now and say that I secretly listen to Jack Johnson."

Michael has never looked at his best friend the same ever since.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [this tweet](https://twitter.com/Gerardcanonico/status/907944242126970880) for inspiring me <3 gerard is such a treasure ^_^


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